It's the fault of these guys that are "working their asses off for the whole year." Those guys have a whole year to get over. Since they can't, the part-timers are needed.
But here's the real problem. Vince won't let anyone become a star. He won't even let anyone get over unless he feels it was his idea in the first place.
Whether you like Daniel Bryan or not, you can't deny the reaction he's getting. The fans are going insane for him on a nightly basis. There's absolutely no good reason to believe he wouldn't be the top star if pushed properly - in fact, the only reason to even think he wouldn't be is if you're just being cynical.
So how does the WWE respond to that situation? They put him in a feud where Triple H is legitimately perceived as the heel. They let Triple H get the better of him on a weekly basis for 6 weeks... and then they book Triple H in 50/50 heel-face role where we never know from one week to the next whether we're going to see Triple H be an asshole or if he's going to try to be a face. The only thing we do know is that Daniel Bryan isn't going to get the better of him - because, honestly, no one ever does. A guy might pin him, but Triple H always manages to kill a guy's steam by refusing to be 'one-upped' in a promo.
Let's apply that same logic in booking to Mick Foley in 1998. Foley gets into a feud with Vince McMahon. McMahon is the heel in this situation, and he gets the best of Foley for nearly two months - this actually shouldn't be tough to imagine since it happened. But after those two months, Vince McMahon starts acting like a face. There are some weeks when he panders to the crowd, feeding his corporate jewel The Rock to the wolves. Other weeks, he acts like an asshole. But at no point does Foley ever get his moment. He never pins The Rock or one-ups Vince McMahon by extension. He just keeps losing... match after match. He keeps getting ambushed by the corporation and never overcomes the odds. Just curious, but at what point would you have stopped caring about Foley and just started investing in someone else?
A few years back, CM Punk was white hot - the first wrestler since Austin and The Rock who brought mainstream attention for things that actually happened on WWE TV. So how does the WWE respond? They have Kevin Nash screw him. They put him in a short-lived program with Triple H where Triple H pinned him... then they have CM Punk admit to being friends with Triple H even though his character got over for being anti-authority. The duo teams up a month later to face the real anti-authority figures (Miz and R-Truth), and they lose - keep in mind that a month after this loss, the Miz and R-Truth lost a squash match to Cena and The Rock where the entirety of the match was scripted so that the WrestleMania opponents could try to top each other by seeing which one had the easier time man-handling the competition. And to make matters worse, CM Punk never gets retribution on the guy that cost him the title - Kevin Nash. Nope. That honor goes to Triple H, who was seemingly being a good big brother to Punk and fighting his battles for him.
Let's apply this to Austin in 1998. Let's imagine that after Austin won his first WWE Title, Sgt. Slaughter came back and screwed him out of it. Austin gets into a short program with Vince McMahon where Vince wins the match. A few days later, Austin - our anti-authority hero - decides to become friends with Vince. This leads to a tag-match where Vince and Austin face the real anti-authority villains (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) and they lose. A month later, Vince McMahon challenges Sgt. Slaughter to a match and Austin never gets retribution on the guy that screwed him in the first place. Good story? Are we still giving Austin a 'hell yea' every time he asks for one? I doubt it.
And this isn't even just a common story for the guys that reached main event status. It's a trend in the mid-card, too.
Zack Ryder was never going to be a main-event guy, but he was more over than pretty much everyone vying for the irrelevant IC or US Titles. His gimmick was stupid as hell, but it got over - maybe because fans appreciated that he got over despite never being on TV or without ever having the WWE Machine even acknowledge his existence on the roster. Whatever the reason was, people were actually reacting to him, and that should be all that matters, right? Wrong.
The WWE gave him the title on December 18. Over the next three weeks, he wrestled two six-man tags (both main events, mind you) and one mixed tag-team match. He then spent one week in a Michael Myers-esque horror movie that ended with Kane choke slamming him off a loading dock. The next week, he dropped the title in a squash match. He didn't get booked for the Rumble. He was written off TV all February with the exception of one Raw where he slapped John Cena because he was upset about Eve. He re-surfaced in March to play the role of a love-sick fool, catering to the needs of a woman that everyone - including himself - knew was just using him. This came to a head at WrestleMania where the woman screwed him out of his match. He was then written off TV and barely heard from again. The IWC gets knocked for investing in Ryder and then losing interest quickly... but how the hell were we supposed to keep up the interest when 1) they used his popularity for nothing else but to put over Eve and further the Kane/Cena story, 2) they wrote him off TV, and 3) they took control of his YouTube show and canceled it, thus giving us pretty much no way to actually see the guy anymore.
How about Dolph Ziggler? The guy got one of the loudest pops I've ever heard on a Monday Night Raw. I was at the Raw where Jericho debuted as well as the Raw where Hogan returned and was confronted by The Rock for the first time. The Ziggler cheer after winning the WHC was louder than both. The only time I remember a crowd coming close to that was when Foley won his first WWF Title. Sure, the after-Mania Raw crowd is a special one, and that played a huge role in the thunderous ovation - but I've never understood why Fandango got more love from the WWE announcers for the reaction he got that night than Ziggler did.
So how does the WWE capitalize? Well, within two months of this win, he's wrestling in a mixed tag-team match at the pay-per view. A month later, he's losing a singles match to Dean Ambrose. And since then, his only pay-per view appearance was in the Royal Rumble. People like to re-write history and say that Ziggler simply wasn't getting over with the belt, and that's why his push ended. Well, I was at Payback, and short of Punk's entrance, the Ziggler/DelRio match was the loudest that place got all night. You can't tell me people weren't into the guy when I witnessed it with my eyes and heard it with my ears. I was there. Ziggler was completely over - if he wasn't, then the double-turn that occurred in that match wouldn't have been possible. Ziggler just needed the right push to go completely over the top... and it clearly never came.
But moving on ... Cody Rhodes nearly became huge on a whim last September. He needed to be written off TV because of his wedding, and it led to some real-life animosity between the McMahons and Rhodes playing out on television... I wrote a post about it shortly after the angle began:
While I'm not sure the WWE will go all the way with Rhodes, this potential angle has a lot to work with ... and in a similar fashion to the Daniel Bryan story arc, it will work because it's based in reality and just feels real.
So after a few weeks of legitimately teasing the long-held McMahon/Rhodes animosity, the Rhodes brothers got their jobs back ... and the McMahons simply forgot they existed. Now why was this? Well, it's simple. It wasn't long after this angle began that Triple H decided heels no longer existed - a decision that meant he'd never have to put anyone over despite consistently taking away their heat in heel fashion. As a result of Triple H eliminating himself from the Rhodes program, the two brothers were left floundering - and the tag division has suffered ever since. Again, that was a chance for the WWE to make a guy. Maybe Rhodes never would've become a top guy, but who cares? You still need solid talent in the mid-card that the fans can invest in. But once again, Vince McMahon started something and just said 'Ah fuck it. I'm bored with that..." and then he moved on to fucking up the next guy.
So you can blame the talent all you want in not 'getting over' to the level of The Rock, but when the WWE consistently gives them chicken shit and then demotes them on the card for not turning into chicken salad, I start to empathize a little with them. It's no wonder they have to bring back these part-time guys that got over in a time when the WWF allowed guys to get over.
...my only real curiosity comes with why the WWE thinks Batista is that guy. I mean, we're talking about a guy who was a top guy from 2005-2010, a time period when the ratings went from the mid 4's to barely cracking the 3's. If the goal is to attract the former fans that stopped watching, it's borderline psychotic to think the way to do that is by bringing back and pushing the guy that was the reason most of them turned off the TV.
